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With leadership transitions at the United Nations, African Union and in the United States creating uncertainty, Crisis Group's Africa Program Director Comfort Ero and African Union Relations Adviser Elissa Jobson spotlight the three main challenges to Africa's peace and security in the coming months.

Unless regional and international organisations act in concert and inject new life into the mediation process, Burundi risks igniting a wider crisis.

To reverse Burundi’s slide toward a devastating social and humanitarian emergency – as ethnically-charged rhetoric worsens and refugees flee to neighbouring countries – the African Union needs to overcome its internal divisions, fix a so far incoherent response and facilitate a negotiated settlement between the government and the opposition.

Beset by seemingly intractable and bloody crises and conflicts at home and beyond, as well as the global security challenges and climate change, the next AU chair will have to navigate an increasingly complex, international political environment.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a formidable record in its efforts to promote peace in a particularly turbulent region. Still, reform is essential to give the organisation new impetus, and is ever more urgent as insecurity worsens throughout the Sahel and Lake Chad regions.

Talks led by East Africa’s IGAD offer the best chance to end South Sudan’s spreading war. International partners must put aside their disillusionment and rally to the regional body’s new IGAD-PLUS mechanism to help mediators reach a deal.

Talks led by East Africa’s IGAD offer the best chance to end South Sudan’s spreading war. International partners must put aside their disillusionment and rally to the regional body’s new IGAD-PLUS mechanism to help mediators reach a deal.

For more than eighteen months, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional body mediating peace negotiations to end South Sudan’s civil war, has struggled to secure a deal in the face of deep regional divisions and the parties’ truculence. In this video, Crisis Group's South Sudan Analyst Casie Copeland explains how to overcome these challenges.

The upcoming Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to be held on 30 January, is a rare window of opportunity for the regional body, and its partners, to compel South Sudan’s warring parties to make the compromises necessary for peace.